Looking Back and Moving Forward: Voices of Some of NCTM’s Presidents

January 2020

As we start NCTM’s Centennial Celebration year, it is important to put into perspective the rich legacy of our professional organization. I want to invite you to review the 100 Year Timeline to learn about NCTM’s legacy and impact and think forward to the work still to be done. When I review the timeline, I see that NCTM’s leaders were visionary on one hand and shortsighted on the other. It is within this tension that organizations grow and evolve to become change agents through lessons learned over time. 

Founding NCTM was a game changer because it focused on ways to give voice to mathematics teachers, specifically high school mathematics teachers. I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge that not all voices were included in the founding of the organization. Over time NCTM space has expanded to include teachers of mathematics across all grade bands and more diverse voices. I wondered about the voices of the marginalized teachers and students. My wonders are not only grounded in whether or not they were participatory but also how they were discussed and positioned. Below, I capture the voices of a few of NCTM’s presidents as part of NCTM’s legacy for mathematics teaching and learning.

In April, we will celebrate NCTM’s Centennial in the location of an affiliate whose history is woven into the fabric of NCTM, the Metropolitan Mathematics Club of Chicago (MMC). MMC is NCTM’s Affiliate Number 1 and was formed in 1913, making it older than NCTM. At a meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, coinciding with the annual National Education Association meeting, 127 mathematics teachers from 20 states formed NCTM as a mathematics teacher organization. Charles M. Austin, NCTM’s first president, stated NCTM’s purpose:

First, it will at all times keep the values and interests of mathematics before the educational world. Instead of continual criticism at educational meetings, we intend to present constructive programs by friends of mathematics. We prefer that curriculum studies and reforms and adjustments come from the teachers of mathematics rather than from educational reformers (NCTM 2003, p. 187).

Given the context of the times, I believe this was a progressive and bold statement because it positioned mathematics teachers as having shared authority with regard to mathematics teaching and learning. With the establishment of NCTM, the high school and college mathematics education community consolidated its resources into one national voice. This legacy continues today as teachers of mathematics across all grade bands, mathematics teacher educators, mathematics leaders, and others work on issues affecting mathematics teaching and learning.

School attendance increased in the early 20th century. School attendance among elementary-age White and Black children surpassed 80 percent by 1930 (Anderson 1984). Significant differences existed among segregated schools during this time. Additionally, the increase in attendance resulted in greater diversity among the backgrounds of learners. The response to the rise in school attendance led to grouping students by ability in mathematics (Ellis 2008). In The First Yearbook of NCTM, President Raleigh Schorling expressed his concern that the “increase in the school population has given us a wider sampling of the general public and hence has in all probability lowered the level of ability" (1926, p. 102). This work described some learners as less prepared and less motivated than others.

As I unpack President Schorling’s work within the context of NCTM’s growth and evolution during the past 100 years, I wondered whether mathematics teaching and learning would be changed today had a different approach been taken. Most recently, in the Catalyzing Change series, NCTM recommended the elimination of tracking and grouping students by ability. NCTM has learned its lessons from its past, and I see growth in the ways high-quality mathematics teaching can meet the needs of each and every learner.

NCTM has a legacy of focusing on improving mathematics teaching such that students see themselves as capable of doing mathematics. Marie Gugle, NCTM’s fourth president and the first woman to serve as president, acknowledged that teaching needed to be improved not only in junior high and high schools but also at colleges. In 1926, she wrote in The Mathematics Teacher:

When I taught geometry in high school, I deliberately planned during the first few weeks to break down the prejudices that pupils brought with them. After a few weeks, I have had more than one pupil say; “Oh! I didn’t know geometry was like this. I was told it was hard.” No pupil with a mind set against a subject will ever learn it. (Gugle 1926, p. 324)

President Gugle’s comments on teaching are visionary when we reflect on conversations of today with regard to mindset, mathematical identity, and making connections to students. She went on to say about many teachers and professors, “Little do they realize the effect of emotion or attitude on learning” (p. 324).

Equity has been a significant focus of my journey with NCTM, and organizationally, NCTM continues to grow and evolve in this space. Iris Carl, NCTM’s first Black president, created a legacy of equity in mathematics education that is etched in NCTM’s history. She was visionary in the ways she advocated for each student:

We must convince young people that if they want to succeed in the worlds of business, government, entertainment, or in any other field of human endeavor, they have to succeed in mathematics. We must reach out and pass the baton of mathematical knowledge to our students because the greatest gift we can give them is mathematical power. (Carl and Frye 1991, p. 433)

The notion of mathematical power resonates with the ideas of using mathematics to understand and critique the world. Today President Carl’s legacy is celebrated each year at the NCTM Annual Meeting & Exposition with the Iris Carl Equity Address.

Lee Stiff, NCTM’s second Black president, captures President Carl’s legacy by challenging NCTM and the broader community to have the will to address equity issues in mathematics education:

We know that students learn more mathematics when given the opportunity to study more mathematics and not be tracked out of high-quality mathematics content. We know students achieve more when supported by their parents or guardians. We know that students can achieve much more when much more is expected of them. (Stiff 2001)

President Stiff’s challenge reminds us to continually create mathematics opportunities for students, support teachers of mathematics, and to consider perspectives of those often marginalized.

This year, 2020, not only marks NCTM’s Centennial, but it is also the 50th anniversary of the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education (JRME). It also marks the launch of NCTM’s newest journal, Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK–12 (MTLT), and a new beginning with the start of a fall Annual Meeting in St. Louis, October 21–24. Please join in on the celebration, and let’s set the course for the next 100 years.

I invite you to read, ask questions, and share your thoughts about NCTM’s 100 Year Timeline. Please tweet @NCTM and @robertqberry your questions and thoughts using #NCTM100. Also, start a conversation on MyNCTM.org.

I have been an NCTM member for more than 25 years, and I have been fortunate to collaborate with some extraordinary people. One such person was Dr. Karen D. King. On December 24, 2019, Karen transitioned from this life, and the field of mathematics education lost a powerful and inspirational advocate. Karen supported high-quality mathematics teaching, quality research in mathematics education, and policies impacting mathematics teaching and learning. Karen was a role model for many scholars and a genuinely kind, honest, and thoughtful person. She mentored many students and colleagues; she gave voice to issues often ignored in the field, and she was a change agent. The mathematics education community will miss Dr. King, but her legacy will be long-lasting.

Robert Q. Berry III
NCTM President
@robertqberry

Anderson, James D. 1984. “The Schooling and Achievement of Black Children: Before and after Brown v. Topeka, 1900–1980.” In The Effects of Desegregation on Motivation and Achievement, edited by D. E. Bartz and M. L. Maehr, pp. 103–22. Greenwich: CT: JAI Press.

Carl, Iris, and Shirley M. Frye. 1991. “President’s Report: The NCTM’s Standards: New Dimensions in Leadership.” Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 22, no. 5 (November): 432–40.

Ellis, Mark W. 2008. “Leaving No Child Behind Yet Allowing None Too Far Ahead: Ensuring (In)Equity in Mathematics Education through the Science of Measurement and Instruction.” Teachers College Record 110, no. 6 (June): 1330–56.

Gugle, Marie. 1926. “Revision of College Preparatory Mathematics.” Mathematics Teacher 19, no. 6 (October): 321–28.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). 2003. A History of School Mathematics, Volume 1, edited by George M. S. Stanic and Jeremy Kilpatrick, p. 187. Reston, VA: NCTM.

Schorling, Raleigh. 1926. “Suggestions for the Solution of an Important Problem That Has Arisen in the Last Quarter of a Century.” In The First Yearbook: A General Survey of Progress in the Last Twenty-Five Years, edited by R. Schorling, pp. 58–105. Oak Park, IL: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Stiff, Lee V. 2001. “President’s Message.” NCTM News Bulletin, November 2001.